Lead Technical Architect

Government Office for Science; London; Hybrid; GBP 55,000; Full time

Job summary

The Government Office for Science seeks a Lead Technical Architect to guide the design of digital infrastructure supporting scientific and technological insights. You'll lead a multidisciplinary team, fostering innovation and ensuring effective governance of technical operations, contributing to vital policy-making across government.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

28.97% employer pension contribution

25 days annual leave

Professional development opportunities

Employee discounts

Qualifications

• Experience in designing cloud-first data platforms.
• Hands-on experience with high-level programming languages.
• Proven experience in technical architecture.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design of digital systems and services.
• Oversee the day-to-day management of technical operations.
• Liaise with digital and technical teams.

Skills

Cloud architecture

Software engineering

API management

Data engineering

Education

Degree in Computer Science or relevant field

Tools

Microsoft Azure

MS SQL Server

Job description

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Birmingham, Cardiff, Darlington, Edinburgh, London, Salford

Job Summary

The Government Office for Science works at the heart of Government, ensuring policies and decisions are informed by the best scientific evidence and strategic long-term thinking. It's an exciting time to join the organisation; we have outstanding and high-profile positions providing you an opportunity to inform and influence policy-making and the systems for use of science and engineering across government. If you are highly motivated and looking for your next career challenge we want to hear from you.

Our Mission Is

• Science advice mechanisms that are efficient, effective, speak truth to power and are embedded irreversibly in Government systems.
• Visible impact through both pro-active and demand-led science advice that is relevant, excellent, and delivered fit for purpose.
  
  

Further Information Can Be Found Here

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/government-office-for-science

We strongly believe diversity of experience, thought, perspectives, skills, and background makes us a more innovative, welcoming Department, thus making better decisions and better delivering our objectives. We are actively seeking applications from every part of the community and particularly welcome applications from candidates of any age, background, disability, or from an ethnic minority background and any other protected characteristics. This will help us move to a workforce that reflects the people we serve to deliver better policies.

We are a friendly, inclusive team and emphasise personal development. We will ensure individuals with disabilities are provided adjustments to participate in the job application and interview process. We support your wellbeing by putting flexible working at the heart of our offer.; if successful, you will be able to discuss working arrangements with your new manager.

We maintain an internal surge capability of staff who may be called at short notice to support an activation of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). Training and support will be provided. This is an excellent opportunity to develop crisis management skills.

Job Description

This Lead Technical Architect role sits within our Technology and Science Insights unit. TSI provides high quality, independent evidence to inform strategic decisions on science and technology and long- term issues. We are a multidisciplinary team of digital professionals, analysts, data scientists, scientists, economists, and policy professionals. Our team is diverse, inclusive and focused on individual wellbeing. We are proud to support lots of different working patterns, locations and learning and development activity.

Our Technology Science Insights team acquire, process and analyse data from multiple sources to understand the UK's relative areas of strength and weakness in science and technology. The team maintain a cloud-based digital infrastructure (Microsoft Azure) to support end to end analytical work, including data acquisition, storage, processing and provision of aggregated outputs. We also have ambitious plans to broaden our digital capabilities to enable the GO-Science mission of putting scientific advice and evidence at the heart of government.

The post holder will work collaboratively to lead the technical design of our digital systems and services, and oversee the day to day management of them. The post-holder will lead and manage a small digital team, comprising Dev-Ops Engineering, Data Engineering and Tech Support.

The role aligns to the Lead Technical Architect Role from the Government Digital and Data Framework. A Lead Technical Architect can see the big picture, understanding our digital and technology landscape. They can clearly and effectively communicate the business needs that our digital infrastructure supports, developing great relationships with and collaborating with our central digital teams. They provide leadership, mentoring and support to other digital roles within the team, and they have a good understanding of a broad range of technologies, with experience in both software engineering and effective governance.

This Lead Technical Architect role sits within our Technology and Science Insights unit. TSI provides high quality, independent evidence to inform strategic decisions on science and technology and long- term issues. We are a multidisciplinary team of digital professionals, analysts, data scientists, scientists, economists, and policy professionals. Our team is diverse, inclusive and focused on individual wellbeing. We are proud to support lots of different working patterns, locations and learning and development activity.

Our Technology Science Insights team acquire, process and analyse data from multiple sources to understand the UK's relative areas of strength and weakness in science and technology. The team maintain a cloud-based digital infrastructure (Microsoft Azure) to support end to end analytical work, including data acquisition, storage, processing and provision of aggregated outputs. We also have ambitious plans to broaden our digital capabilities to enable the GO-Science mission of putting scientific advice and evidence at the heart of government.

The post holder will work collaboratively to lead the technical design of our digital systems and services, and oversee the day to day management of them. The post-holder will lead and manage a small digital team, comprising Dev-Ops Engineering, Data Engineering and Tech Support.

The role aligns to the Lead Technical Architect Role from the Government Digital and Data Framework. A Lead Technical Architect can see the big picture, understanding our digital and technology landscape. They can clearly and effectively communicate the business needs that our digital infrastructure supports, developing great relationships with and collaborating with our central digital teams. They provide leadership, mentoring and support to other digital roles within the team, and they have a good understanding of a broad range of technologies, with experience in both software engineering and effective governance.

Person specification

Key Responsibilities

Working in a multidisciplinary team, leading the technical design of our digital systems and services to support our analytical work, and overseeing the day to day management of our technical operations. This will include:

Ensuring the overall design of our systems are optimised to enable our data and analytical work, and managed with appropriate governance controls.

Liaising with our central digital and technical teams to ensure the smooth running of our local systems.

Providing leadership and support to other digital roles within GO-Science, including DevOps and Data Engineering.

GO Science maintains an internal surge capability of staff who may be called on at short notice to support urgent areas of work. There may be opportunities to volunteer to support this activity.

Essential Criteria

Proven experience as a Software Engineer, Data Engineer, DevOps/Cloud/Infra Engineer, or Technical Architect.

Experience designing modern, cloud-first for data platforms using a major cloud provider (Preferably Azure, but AWS and GCP are also welcome).

Experience in designing software architecture or cloud infrastructure architecture, including micro services, API management, data persistence technologies, and event-driven architecture.

Hands-on experience writing code in a high-level programming language (e.g. Python, C#, JavaScript, etc).

Solid understanding of relational databases and their internals (Preferably MS SQL Server).

Experience in introducing and championing best practices such as agile development, domain-driven design (DDD), test-driven development (TDD), continuous integration (CI), continuous delivery (CD), and DevOps, fostering high-quality engineering culture within teams.

Experience designing modern, cloud-first architectures, leveraging cloud capabilities to design secure, scalable, and resilient applications, while mitigating security risks in public cloud environments.

Ability to see the “big picture” across multidisciplinary teams, the organisation as a whole, including views of other professions, and the ability to explain the big picture to all professions at all levels, ensuring mutual understanding and trust.

For Ref: Technical Skills (please see links):

Architecture communication: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#architecture-communication : Expert

Technical design throughout the life cycle: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#technical-design-throughout-the-life-cycle : Expert

Making architectural decisions: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#making-architectural-decisions : Expert

Turning business problems into data design: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#turning-business-problems-into-data-design : Practitioner

Data innovation: https://ddat-capability-framework.service.gov.uk/skills#data-innovation : Practitioner

Desirable Criteria

Experience with Azure Data Factory, Azure Databricks, or Azure ML Studio.

Familiarity with modern data platform architectures such as Data Lakehouses and Fabrics.

We are fully committed to being an inclusive employer and ensuring equal opportunities. We are keen to make our workforce as diverse as possible and recognise how important inclusivity is to achieve the best outcomes. We hope to attract applications from all underrepresented groups.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service
• Making Effective Decisions
  
  

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process:

• Architecture communication: expert
• Making architectural decisions: expert
  
  

Alongside your salary of £54,415, Government Office for Science contributes £15,764 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

We Offer a Competitive Mix Of Benefits Including

• A culture of flexible working, such as job sharing, homeworking and compressed hours.
• Automatic enrolment into the Civil Service Pension scheme with an employer contribution of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by 1 day per year up to a maximum of 30.
• An extensive range of learning & professional development opportunities, which all staff are actively encouraged to pursue.
• Access to a range of retail, travel and lifestyle employee discounts.
  
  

For the full list and to see our commitment to diversity and inclusion, please see the attached Employee Offer booklet.

Office attendance

The Department operates a discretionary hybrid working policy, which provides for a combination of working hours from your place of work and from your home in the UK. The current expectation for staff is to attend the office or non-home based location for 40-60% of the time over the accounting period.

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Experience and Technical skills.

As part of the application process you will be asked to complete a CV and personal statement.

Further details around what this will entail are listed on the application form.

Please use your personal statement (in no more than 1000 words) to outline how you meet the skills, technical skills (please see links shared in essential criteria) and experience required for this role, as set out in the essential criteria.

Applications will be sifted on CV and Personal Statement.

In the event of a large number of applicants, applications will be sifted on the personal statement.

Candidates who pass the initial sift may be progressed to a full sift, or progressed straight to assessment/interview.

The interview will consist of behaviour, technical and strength-based questions.

Interviewees will be asked to deliver a presentation; further details will be provided nearer the time.

Sift and interview dates

Sift and interview dates to be confirmed.

Further Information

For further information on National Security Vetting please visit the Demystifying Vetting website.

Reasonable Adjustment

We are proud to be a disability confident leader and we welcome applications from disabled candidates and candidates with long-term conditions.

Information about the Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) and some examples of adjustments that we offer to disabled candidates and candidates with long-term health conditions during our recruitment process can be found in ourDSIT Candidate Guidance. ADSIT Plain Text Version of the guidance is also available.

We encourage candidates to discuss their adjustment needs by emailing the job contact which can be found under the contact point for applicants section.

If you are experiencing accessibility problems with any attachments on this advert, please contact the email address in the 'Contact point for applicants' section.

If successful and transferring from another Government Department a criminal record check may be carried out.

New entrants are expected to join on the minimum of the pay band.

A location based reserve list of successful candidates will be kept for 12 months. Should another role become available within that period you may be offered this position.

Please note terms and conditions are attached. Please take time to read the document to determine how these may affect you.

Any move to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology from another employer will mean you can no longer access childcare vouchers. This includes moves between government departments. You may however be eligible for other government schemes, including Tax Free Childcare; for further information visit the Childcare Choices website.

DSIT does not normally offer full home working (i.e. working at home); but we do offer a variety of flexible working options (including occasionally working from home).

DSIT cannot offer Visa sponsorship to candidates through this campaign.

DSIT holds a Visa sponsorship licence but this can only be used for certain roles and this campaign does not qualify.

In order to process applications without delay, we will be sending a Criminal Record Check to Disclosure and Barring Service /Disclosure Scotland on your behalf.

However, we recognise in exceptional circumstances some candidates will want to send their completed forms direct. If you will be doing this, please advise Government Recruitment Service of your intention by emailing [e-mail] stating the job reference number in the subject heading.

For further information on the Disclosure Scotland confidential checking service telephone: the Disclosure Scotland Helpline on 0870 609 6006 and ask to speak to the operations manager in confidence, or email [e-mail]

Applicants who are successul at interview will be, as part of pre-employment screening, subject to a check on the Internal Fraud Database (IFD). This check will provide information about employees who have been dismissed for fraud or dishonesty offences. This check also applies to employees who resign or otherwise leave before being dismissed for fraud or dishonesty had their employment continued. Any applicant’s details held on the IFD will be refused employment.

A candidate is not eligible to apply for a role within the Civil Service if the application is made within a 5 year period following a dismissal for carrying out internal fraud against government.

Feedback

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours, Strengths, Experience and Technical skills.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check.

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is security check (opens in a new window).See our vetting charter (opens in a new window).

People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This Job Is Broadly Open To The Following Groups

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service
  
  

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window).

The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.

Diversity and Inclusion

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan (opens in a new window) and the Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion Strategy (opens in a new window).

This vacancy is part of the Great Place to Work for Veterans (opens in a new window) initiative.

The Civil Service welcomes applications from people who have recently left prison or have an unspent conviction. Read more about prison leaver recruitment (opens in new window).

Once this job has closed, the job advert will no longer be available. You may want to save a copy for your records.

Contact point for applicants

Job Contact

• Name : Ruth Edwards-James
• Email : [e-mail]
  
  

Recruitment team

• Email : [e-mail]
  
  

Further information

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel that your application has not been treated in accordance with the recruitment principles, and wish to make a complaint, then you should contact in the first instance [e-mail] . If you are not satisfied with the response that you receive, then you can contact the Civil Service Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission please visit their web pages: Click here to visit Civil Service Commission/Complaints.

Seniority level

• Seniority level

  Mid-Senior level

Employment type

• Employment type

  Full-time

Job function

• Job function

  Engineering and Information Technology

• Industries

  Government Administration

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